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With all the talk about Chinese backdoors and state-sponsored spying we must remember that our personal information is also at risk from entities closer to home. Case in point: Snapchat, whose employees have apparently been abusing access to user data, according to a new report from VICE. This is especially troubling for an ephemeral photo and video messaging service that first gained popularity as a sexting app.

The tool used to access user accounts is known internally as SnapLion (as per the fake logo whipped up by a VICE artist above); more on that from the source:

The tool was originally used to gather information on users in response to valid law enforcement requests, such as a court order or subpoena, two former employees said. Snap's "Spam and Abuse" team has access, according to one of the former employees, and a current employee suggested the tool is used to combat bullying or harassment on the platform by other users. An internal Snap email obtained by Motherboard says a department called "Customer Ops" has access to SnapLion. Security staff also have access, according to the current employee. The existence of this tool has not been previously reported.

Data that can be retrieved using SnapLion includes user generated content (Snaps) and location information, plus the email addresses and phone numbers of users.

From interviews with Snap employees VICE says that abuse was carried out by multiple individuals within the company, and occurred on multiple occasions. Read the full story at the link immediately below.

Potentially good news for our American friends reading this... The Verge reports today that the U.S. Senate voted 97-1 in favour (favor) of a new bill that would better equip the FCC in their ongoing fight against robocalls:

A bipartisan proposal, the TRACED Act was introduced by Sens. John Thune (R-SD) and Ed Markey (D-MA). If passed, it would raise the fines the FCC is permitted to levy on robocallers, and increase the statute of limitations for bringing those cases. It would also create an interagency task force to address the problem, and push carriers like AT&T and Verizon to deploy call authentication systems like the pending STIR/SHAKEN protocols into their networks.

In case you were wondering what STIR/SHAKEN is all about, it's an acronym that stands for "Secure Telephone Identity Revisited and Signature-Based Handling of Asserted Information Using Tokens"—or, in English, using digital certificates so that incoming calls on your phone can't use a spoofed number.

As for the TRACED Act itself it now goes to the House of Representatives for final approval. Fingers crossed...!

In a leaked PowerPoint slide it seems that these are the only four markets where Sony will be selling smartphones going forward. At the moment it's a bit unclear when Sony will officially exit North America—as an example, the Sony Mobile Canada site is still live, with at least one carrier still selling the Xperia XZ2. It's Bell Mobility, in case you were wondering.

Other slides leaked from the same presentation make it abundantly clear that the Japanese electronics giant is planning complete structural reforms of its smartphone business for 2019, aiming for a 50% reduction in operating expenses and a 57% savings overall by the end of 2020.

Hopefully grey market imports from Hong Kong will still be an option for Xperia fans.

For Huawei users' questions regarding our steps to comply w/ the recent US government actions: We assure you while we are complying with all US gov't requirements, services like Google Play & security from Google Play Protect will keep functioning on your existing Huawei device.

For future Huawei releases, however, the forecast looks decidedly grim. To comply with government orders it's not just Google denying access to their products but Broadcom, Intel and Qualcomm as well. How much all of this will actually hurt the world's number two OEM is debatable; the company already makes their own smartphone chips and apparently has an in-house backup smartphone OS ready for deployment at any time.

Could other Chinese smartphone makers like OnePlus be added to the U.S. blacklist? Could China counter by banning all Apple products? Given the current state of affairs anything seems possible.

Yesterday Canada's Competition Bureau released its 51-page submission to the CRTC, in advance of the latter's 2020 review of mobile wireless services in this country. You can read the press release here and download a PDF of report here. Spoiler alert: there's nothing in either that we didn't already know, but we can at least take some comfort that a government body is backing up what we've already figured out.

The submission goes into some detail about the wildly varying cost of service in different provinces. From Page 10 of the report:

As of April 15, 2019, the average cost of a 10GB plan sold by the national wireless carriers' main brands in Saskatchewan was $66.67, while the average cost in New Brunswick was $108.33. However, according to 2018 network quality data collected by PCMag, network quality in Saskatchewan is better than network quality in New Brunswick.

Thumbs-up to The Bureau for recognizing 10GB as a decent monthly data bucket. Anyhoo, the obvious reason for this disparity in cost is the presence of a strong regional carrier, in this case the prairie operator SaskTel.

One way to kick-start competition is to allow mobile virtual network operators; in a separate filing TekSavvy has expressed their strong desire to be an MVNO. As for our incumbent carriers, Bell's solution for cheaper rates is longer service contracts—to further subsidize ultra-premium hardware, as was common practice before 2013's Wireless Code. In answer to that, iPhone in Canada has perhaps the best advice for wireless subscribers:

If you want to lower your cellphone bill, buy a phone outright and avoid contracts. Get onto a monthly bring-your-own-device (BYOD) plan and just keep jumping from carrier to carrier, as new promotional plans pop up throughout the year.

A special episode of The Vergecast this week features an interview with Mark Rifkin, a lawyer involved in a class action suit against Apple. Originally filed in 2011, Apple vs. Pepper argues that the iOS App Store is an unlawful monopoly; whereas Android (for example) offers alternative app stores and direct installs from developers, Apple gives you exactly two choices: deal with the App Store or have zero third-party apps on your phone. Because Apple takes a 30% commission on all App Store purchases, the plaintiffs argue that this fee is passed on to users, who again have nowhere else to go.

The case has been making its way through the legal system for the past eight years. First, a lower court sided with Apple; then an appeals court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs. This week the Supreme Court upheld the prior ruling against Apple, citing the precedent of Illinois Brick, a case where the state of Illinois sued a brick company for price-fixing. Without going into too much detail, that case was about who in the supply chain was the guilty party.

Here's what Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh says about Apple:

iPhone owners are not consumers at the bottom of a vertical distribution chain who are attempting to sue manufacturers at the top of the chain. There is no intermediary in the distribution chain between Apple and the consumer. The iPhone owners purchase apps directly from the retailer Apple, who is the alleged antitrust violator. The iPhone owners pay the alleged overcharge directly to Apple.

In a statement to The Verge Apple asserts that its App Store "is not a monopoly by any metric", and will likely cite the very existence of Android as proof. But, according to Rifkin:

“The fact that they have a [less than] 50 percent market share of smartphones doesn’t mean they don’t have a 100 percent share of the distribution of iPhone apps—which they absolutely do.”

With their latest phone OnePlus is moving very much upmarket, more so in Canada than anywhere else. The starting price for the 7 Pro here will be exactly one loonie shy of a thousand bucks. Before taxes. To make matters worse, users in this country will have no official carrier to subsidize their purchase.

This isn't the case in other markets. I mentioned in yesterday's notes that in addition to the livestream from New York City there were simultaneous launch events in London and Bengaluru; audiences there were treated to a device we apparently won't be able to get here: the non-Pro OnePlus 7. It's the same size and comes with an FHD screen similar to last fall's OnePlus 6T, but adds an upgraded processor, better image sensor and stereo speakers.

Unless I'm mistaken the non-Pro 7 supports all non-freak bands (ie. Freedom and T-Mobile) of North American 4G. And unlike the Pro it's similarly sized to OnePlus phones that came before it. Maybe the non-Pro version will serve as the fall update for North America this year?

Carlton Ward, Jr., NatGeo photographer
(slideshow of nature photos from florida)
- dude is super-boring
- apparently carl pei is at india launch
- there's a livestream from london event as well
- all 3 events have professional photogs showing slideshows rn
- is there even a live audience in nyc?
- i see silhouettes of exactly two people

Looks like OnePlus is ripping off Apple yet again, this time in the best possible way: they are now accepting trade-ins! Customers can either get a credit towards a new phone by sending their old one in for inspection, or get cash back at any time using the same procedure. The landing page for the trade-in program mentions some kind of promo happening tomorrow—which also happens to be the launch date for the OnePlus 7 and 7 Pro. But it seems like you're able to trade in your aging OnePlus device today.

OnePlus will also happily take in used phones from other OEMs—including Apple, Samsung, Google, Moto, HTC, Sony and LG. Hopefully your trade-in will be stripped for parts and repurposed, and not just dumped in a landfill somewhere. To clear out your used phone drawer use the appropriate link below.

Okay, this is getting a bit ridiculous... after years of complaining about tap and pay on Android I finally have a OnePlus phone with a decent NFC radio and a stable version of Magisk that successfully hides root from Google's official tap and pay app.

And it still doesn't work.

Shame on me, I guess, for thinking I could use it with my AMEX card at a shop where AMEX isn't accepted. Since Google obfuscates your credit card number from the merchant I assumed that the type of credit card would similarly be hidden; I was wrong. I realize that it's only a matter of time until tap and pay finally starts working as promised, but this latest experience has me questioning yet again if I should even bother.

Let's revisit the three pillars of Google Pay:

Security
Again, Google Pay hides my credit card number from the retailer, but here in Canada credit cards use Chip and PIN security which yields, for the user, pretty much the same result.

Convenience
Google Pay does at least let me leave my credit and debit cards at home, so if I get a hankering for Peanut M&Ms when I'm out getting exercise then I'm covered. But most of the time I carry my phone in my oversized wallet, so the value for me is dubious at best.

Offers
Google Pay is supposed to alert me of nearby offers as I make my way through the world. For the past week in downtown Toronto the number of said offers has been zero.

I'm starting to wonder if the only real perk of using Google Pay is that Google gets to see all of your transactions on any registered card, whether you're using Google Pay or not. Is there something I'm missing here?

I had the same setup and experienced similar performance issues last fall. I was able to put the sim from the Mobley into a Explore 815s connected to the TM-AC1900 router and it ran flawlessly. Using...